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Off the subject but what bothers me a million times more than saying "song" (and almost as much as "shipping") is when a pretty serious musician doesn't know the key of a piece. It gets me mad at that person, and even more so, at the person's teacher. This happened recently: I heard someone play some quite advanced pieces -- pretty well actually -- but fumfed around when trying to say what keys they were in, and really didn't know. I threw a fit. ("HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW WHAT KEYS THEY'RE IN!) The person made sure to know the keys from now on.

Of those pieces anyway.

By rail or air - freight.
By ship - cargo.
By road - shipment.

I didn't think these were subject to regional variation, but I was probably wrong.


John

This is frightening! Maybe if one of us lives to be really, really old, we will be the last person alive to know anything about key signatures. Then we will become highly sought after for our esoteric knowledge!

As I said, "Not implying that you are actually calling me a snob, Mark." I was speaking to anyone when I said "don't call me a snob".Of course. But on the other hand, I don't see why we have to assume they wouldn't even want to know what the correct terminology actually is. I certainly want to learn correct terms when I'm in a field new to me, and I don't mind if people inform me. It all depends how the information is imparted, doesn't it. There are ways which attempt to include newcomers, and ways which come across as excluding.

If we are classical musicians talking within the realm of classical music, "song" is a term of art (i.e, it has a specific meaning that may not match what the word means elsewhere).

If we are kids talking about downloading something from iTunes, a "song" is any downloadable "music".

If we are culturally illiterate programmers, we call music-related digital files "songs", regardless of whether they are MIDI or audio (incidentally, my DAW has become slightly more intelligent about this and now calls them "projects" - which, in context, works for me).

If we are but wee children just learning our language, we may call any and all discrete chunks of music "songs", because that's the only word we know.

Assuming that most of you agree that here in the Pianist Corner of Piano World, we are classical musicians of some stripe or another, I would think that using the term of art would be the accepted thing to do. I'd also think that newbies who didn't know that it was a term of art would be only too happy to discover that it was and would pick up on the usage immediately, and of course, use it.

That there is any resistance at all to the correct classical music usage of the term within a classical music community like this one is, to me, an indicator of some changes taking place that are eroding the entire concept of classical music. That's okay - change is inevitable. But at the same time, I'm not going to pretend that the language I learned to describe this music is invalid, just because some programmers who didn't know any better mistakenly started referring to all music files as "songs".

I don't know how my scores are... going... to my customers. So they are dispatched from me... Now shipped, or trained, or flown in... doesn't make a difference for me (probably flown would be the best word?)

Exactly.

When I was new to classical music as a youngster, I was very eager to learn the terminology involved, and it didn't require any special coddling on the part of those who already knew it to get me to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. I'd think, for those interested in classical music, that sort of eagerness would still prevail.

Has something changed?

My favorite big song is Mahler's 'Symphony of a Thousand'.

My favorite oratorio song is Handel's Messiah.

My favorite chamber song is Mendelssohn's Octet.

My favorite piano song is Ravel's Gaspard de la unit.

My favorite 'song' song (Lied) is Schubert's An die Musik.

My favorite 'chanson' song (or mélodie) is Faure's Après un rêve.

My favorite pop song is 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'.

(They are all songs, according to iTunes on my computer.... )

Well said

I may be an even bigger snob for being irritated when people refer to any text set to music as "lyrics." Did Robert Frost, Shakespeare et al. write lyrics? ok, lyrical poems maybe.

I should maybe not confess that I'm capable of forgetting the key of a piece I've played. I'm aware of it while I'm learning it, but then....

Mozarts first 6 piano sonatas I have heard are the hardest of his piano sonatas and K 545 I have heard is the easiest and the rest of his 20 something sonatas fall somewhere in between.

The last one in D major K576 is subtly evil.

Charles Rosen wrote 'many famous pianists have played it badly', and I wonder if he'd had a bad experience of it himself.

Sometimes K 545 is known as Piano Sonata no. 15 but really it is his 16th piano sonata.

I've never heard it called the 15th.

As regards the original question, has this been posted yet? I don't know if it includes piano or not, but you could substitute the piano for the cows, say, or perhaps the penguins. Or even the explosives.

I like "remove cattle from stage".

I was doing OK sight-reading that until 'Have a nice day', which I found impossible at that point.

http://conquest.imslp.info/files/im...ozart_Werke_Breitkopf_Serie_20_KV545.pdf shows up top Sonatae no. 15 fur das pianoforte which is german for piano sonata no. 15.

That right there tells you that K 545 is his 15th piano sonata when in fact it was actually his 16th.

You did better than I did. I got lost at the Tutti.

The real tough part here is getting the Cro-Magnon feel. No pianist has ever done that suitably, IMO, it's always too strained, without a chocolate sound.

He meant mobile phones making a lot of noise.